Module 8: Food Production and Sustainable Agriculture

1. The Green Revolution (1940s–1970s) introduced high-yield crop varieties, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and irrigation to developing countries — dramatically increasing food production but requiring fossil fuel inputs.
2. Monoculture: growing a single crop species over large areas. Maximizes efficiency but reduces genetic diversity, increasing vulnerability to a single pest, disease, or drought.
3. Soil degradation: topsoil erosion from tilling, nutrient depletion from repeated monocultures, compaction from heavy machinery, and salinization from irrigation all reduce long-term agricultural productivity.
4. Fertilizer runoff (especially nitrogen and phosphorus) causes eutrophication in waterways — algae blooms, oxygen depletion, and dead zones (hypoxic zones) where fish cannot survive.
5. Pesticide resistance develops when a pest population is exposed to a chemical: susceptible individuals die, resistant ones survive and reproduce, eventually dominating the population.
6. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) combines biological controls (predator insects), crop rotation, targeted pesticide use, and monitoring to minimize chemical use while controlling pests.
7. Organic farming prohibits synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. It builds soil health through composting, cover crops, and rotation — but typically yields less per acre than conventional farming.
8. Food security means all people have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food. Food sovereignty adds the right of communities to define their own food systems.

Discussion post

1. Open with one specific food you eat regularly. Trace it from farm to table — what agricultural practices produced it?
2. Identify one environmental impact of how that food is produced (soil erosion, pesticide use, water use, fertilizer runoff).
3. Evaluate one alternative: what would need to change — in farming, policy, or your own choices — to reduce that impact? (Course Outcome 4)
4. Reply to two classmates: do you think the alternative they propose is realistic for most families? Why or why not?

Netiquette from the syllabus: address ideas, not people. Complete sentences, correct spelling. Personal matters go to email, never the board.

Ask at home: If everyone in your neighborhood switched to organic food tomorrow, what would change about the environment — and what might become harder for low-income families?

En español: Si todos en tu vecindario cambiaran a alimentos orgánicos mañana, ¿qué cambiaría en el medio ambiente — y qué podría volverse más difícil para las familias de bajos ingresos?